Bus attacker cuts off victim's head

The man, who was not identified, was arrested for the murder, which occurred last night aboard a bus traveling from Edmonton, Albert, to Winnipeg, Manitoba, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

Authorities also declined to name the victim and provided no other details about the attack.

But passenger Garnet Caton said the victim was stabbed dozens of times by the man sitting next to him. The passenger then severed the man's head with a large knife.

"We heard this bloodcurdling scream and turned around, and the guy was standing up, stabbing this guy repeatedly, like 40 or 50 times," Caton said from a hotel in Brandon, Manitoba, where he and other passengers had been taken to rest.

"There was no rage or anything. He was like a robot, stabbing the guy."

Caton said other passengers raced from the bus, and that he and the driver held the door shut from the outside while awaiting police.

He said the attacker calmly came to the front of the bus to show off the head.

"He dropped the head and went back and started cutting the body back up," said Cody Olmstead, a passenger from Kentville, Nova Scotia.

The victim, who Caton said appeared to be about 19, had been on the bus since Edmonton. He said the attacker boarded the bus in Brandon, Manitoba.

The suspect had been on the bus for about an hour and didn't even sit near his victim at first.

"He sat in the front at first, everything was normal," Caton said.

"We went to the next stop and he got off and had a smoke with another young lady there. When he got on the bus again, he came to the back near where I was sitting.

"He put his bags in the overhead compartment. He didn't say a word to anybody. He seemed totally normal. About a half an hour later, we heard this bloodcurdling scream."

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day called it a "bizarre" and "horrific" incident, but did not discuss details of the attack, saying he did not want to jeopardize the investigation.

"We want to make sure that the process is followed as aggressively as possible, a full legal process, and the perpetrator is definitely dealt with the full force of the law," he said.